Reply #67: Selling the Votomatics on eBay [View All]

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http://www.sptimes.com/News/011101/news_pf/Floridian/A_fad_called_chad.shtml

St. Petersburg Times, published January 11, 2001

Psephos Corp. of Xenia, Ohio, has attracted more interest with its Butterfly Ballot Voting Machine. After hearing about the arrest of two Lake Worth men who tried to sell a stolen Palm Beach County voting machine on eBay, company employees wondered if there might be a market for legitimate merchandise.

So Psephos, which sells election supplies, pulled some Votomatics out of storage and had another company print up a replica of Palm Beach's butterfly ballot. The package, which includes 10 punch-card ballots "so you can explore the system yourself," sells for $99.95 on the company's Web site.

"We have a bunch of used vote recorders in stock, and this looked like a way to get some of them sold," said president Tod Rapp, who unloaded three on eBay and an unknown number direct from the company. "We've had these sitting in the warehouse for quite a while now. Somebody said, 'Why don't we sell them?' "